Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Tech, Insurance, and HC.gov

For a while now, we've been using a service call FormFire to get competitive quotes for small group clients. Basically, the agent and the employer each sign up with the service, and each employee is given a secure sign-in to enter health and other information. Once that's collated, the agent advises the FormFire folks which carriers to quote. There's a nominal fee involved, which the agent foots.

That's the short story version, but one can imagine all the back-end requirements necessary to make this work: HIPAA and other privacy requirements, collation and verification of data, making sure the info is formatted correctly for each carrier, etc. And of course there's the front-end: ease of use for the would-be client is a must, and participating employees must also trust that their personal and financial info is secure.

Sounds familiar, no?

FormFire's CEO just published a piece on the company's blog sharing his perspective on the Exchange roll-out train-wreck, and he speaks from authority:

Makes sense: bits beat scraps. But what lessons would Mr Epp have us - and by extension, our Betters in Capital City - draw from his successful private sector experience?

His Top 5 lists key items, from "Too many cooks in the kitchen" to "Lack of infrastructure planning." But don't be put off by the tech-talk: this post is easily accessible to anyone who's ever written an email or clicked a link.